Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Benjamin Jowett, Ed.

59. It was now daylight, and the Argives, who had become aware of his movements, quitted Nemea¹ and went in search of the enemy. Encountering the Phliasian and Corinthian forces, they killed a few of the Phliasians, and had rather more of their own troops killed by the Corinthians. [2] The Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians marched as they were ordered towards Nemea, but found the Argives no longer there, for by this time they had descended from the high ground, and seeing their lands ravaged were drawing up their troops in order of battle. [3] The Lacedaemonians prepared to meet them. The Argives were now surrounded by their enemies; for on the side of the plain the Lacedaemonians and their division of the army cut them off from the city; from the hills above they were hemmed in by the Corinthians, Phliasians and Pellenians, towards Nemea by the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians, and in the absence of the Athenians, who alone of their allies had not arrived, they had no cavalry. [4] The main body of the Argives and their allies had no conception of their danger. They thought that their position was a favourable one, and that they had cut off the Lacedaemonians in their own country and close to the city of Argos. [5] But two of the Argives, Thrasyllus one of the five generals, and Alciphron the proxenus of the Lacedaemonians, came to Agis when the armies were on the point of engaging, and urged him privately not to fight; the Argives were ready to offer and accept a fair arbitration, if the Lacedaemonians had any complaint to make of them; they would gladly conclude a treaty, and be at peace for the future.